


Everything Eventually Leads Back To You

by Serendipity1



Category: Black Jewels - Anne Bishop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And coming out narratives, And eventual Karla/Wilhelmina, F/F, In which I tell the story of the oft-neglected Wilhelmina, There gets to be sisterly bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-10-16 15:26:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17552246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serendipity1/pseuds/Serendipity1
Summary: Wilhelmina overhears Prince Sadi warning her sister at the party on that fateful night, and makes a decision that changes everything. With Jaenelle gone, with her family's troubles and tangles looming even closer to the surface than before, Wilhelmina has to find it in herself to survive and decide what she will do with her life.





	1. wilhelmina makes a choice

 

_Daemon held her close, stroking her hair. He felt her tears on his neck and his heart bled. She was only twelve. For all her Craft, for all her magic, for all her strength, she was still only twelve. She believed all the lies they'd told her. Even though she struggled against them, even though she tried to doubt the words they'd pounded into her for so many years, she believed their lies. And because she believed, she was more afraid of losing her mentor and friend than she was of losing her life._

  
_He kissed her cheek. "If I promise not to tell, will you promise to go—and not come back?"_

  
_"I can't," Jaenelle whispered._

  
_"Why?" Daemon said angrily. He was losing patience. They were losing precious time._

  
_Jaenelle leaned back and looked at him with her ancient, haunted eyes. "Wilhelmina," she said in a flat voice. "Wilhelmina's strong, Daemon, stronger than she knows, strong enough to wear the Sapphire if she isn't broken. I have to help her until she makes the Offering. Then she'll be stronger than most of the males here, and they won't be able to break her. Then I'll go live with the Priest."_

  
_Daemon looked away. It would be at least four years before Wilhelmina could make the Offering. Jaenelle, if she stayed in Beldon Mor, would be long dead by then._

-Daughter of the Blood, Anne Bishop

 

* * *

 

Wilhelmina hadn't wanted to stay in that room, alone with those men who felt wrong, who felt like they were watching her like a wolf watches a rabbit. She felt ashamed of it, but being with Jaenelle always made her feel a bit safer. When Jaenelle slipped out of the ballroom, she'd tried to follow as surreptitiously as she could, tried not to arouse adult attention that would send someone after them.

  
She'd halted just outside the bathroom, hearing Prince Sadi's voice inside.

  
Jaenelle. In danger. Her special, precious little sister.

  
Briarwood was a terrible place and she knew that, instinctively. Knew it just looking at the building, sensing something horribly off about it. Her family had always brushed her soft, nervous comments aside, saying it felt like that because of the psychic distress of the unstable girls. But Jaenelle returned looking so unhappy, so exhausted.

  
The Priest. Her teacher?

  
Wilhelmina tried to open the door and fumbled with it instead, noticing it was locked. A chill laced the air around her for a moment and the door opened to Prince Sadi standing there, his golden eyes slightly glazed, and Jaenelle looking resigned and unhappy. Prince Sadi's expression thawed when he saw it was only her, but she took a deep breath and stepped in, closing the door.

  
"Go," the words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself, tears just beginning to prick at her eyes. "Jaenelle...if you're in trouble, if you're not safe, please go."

  
A click told her that Prince Sadi had locked the door again. Jaenelle sighed, sounding rueful. "You're not supposed to eavesdrop on other people's conversations, Wilhelmina," Jaenelle said in that too-old voice of hers, dry and amused at once.

  
Wilhelmina took her sister's hands in hers, hands that were still too thin from the last time she'd been locked in that hospital. "Your secret teacher, if he'll let you stay, if he'll," she choked back a sob, "If he'll...if he'll keep you safe, Jaenelle- don't do this just for me. Don't stay for me."

  
Jaenelle's eyes were deep, ancient pools. Usually Wilhelmina couldn't meet her gaze when she was like this, but now she tried to keep watching.

  
"The males here..." her voice was soft, malevolent, "They're dangerous, Wilhelmina. They'll break you."

  
And her family wouldn't help. She knew it. Hadn't Wilhelmina watched the denial, the disbelief, as Jaenelle came home with her 'stories' of Doctor Carvay? Oh, she understood enough. She understood her father's occasional caresses of her thigh, the way he still wanted her to sit on his lap, Wilhelmina understood all of this too well. But Jaenelle...she turned to Prince Sadi, who was studying her with a calculating gaze.

  
"What's going to happen to my sister?" she asked him. Prince Sadi was so protective, so fond of Jaenelle. He wouldn't try to diminish the truth to protect Wilhelmina's feelings.

  
Now she recognized the expression he wore. It was desperation. "They'll kill her," he said, flatly. "There are dangerous people after Jaenelle, Wilhelmina, and they want her dead."

  
Wilhelmina felt the blood drain from her face, felt her knees shake, heard Jaenelle's hissed complaints at Prince Sadi for frightening her. "No, I wanted to know," she said, numb. The world felt numb. The bottom of her stomach felt like it had dropped. "Jaenelle," her voice shook. "Broken is better than dead."

  
"Wil-" Jaenelle started, brushing her hand.

  
The start of a soothing spell caressed her, calming her enough to let her say what she needed to say. "You've always protected me," she said, still shaking, tears pouring down her face now. "I'm the big sister, but you're the protector. But this time let me help you. Let me look after you for once. Don't make me watch you get hurt, Jaenelle. Please, go."  
Jaenelle looked at her for a long moment, her sapphire eyes locked on hers, her mouth drawn. Then tears spilled over and she nodded. "All right."

  
Wilhelmina grabbed her in a fierce embrace, her heart aching. This was the last time in a long while she'd see her sister. Maybe not forever. Maybe she'd come back when she was grown up and strong and ready, ready to be independent, ready to not be subject to her family's control, but that would be years. Years and years.

  
"I love you," she said, pressing a kiss on her sister's head, "Be safe."

  
"You're the one who needs to be safe now," Jaenelle said, sounding rueful and worried at the same time. "Here," she pressed something into her hands. "It will feel like yours. Anyone will think it's yours, and it will act to protect you. That's the best I can do."

  
Wilhelmina looked at the Sapphire jewel in her hands and gulped, then nodded. She looked at Prince Sadi, blinking back tears, realizing she looked a terrible mess and not intimidating at all, and tried to make her tone stern. "Take care of my sister," she said, but her voice wobbled.

  
Unexpectedly, he took her in his arms and gave her a hug as well. "Thank you," he said, softly.

  
She nodded, her hair brushing against his jacket. Prince Sadi would keep Jaenelle out of danger.

  
There were faint sounds of voices outside the door, and Jaenelle took Prince Sadi's hand with one last nod at Wilhelmina, one last bittersweet smile. And then they both disappeared.

  
She sucked in a breath and waved a hand where they had been, but met nothing.

  
Someone pounded at the door and she splashed her face with water quickly. "Yes?"

  
"Who's in there? Wilhelmina?" Alexandra, her tone imperious and edging on fear.

  
"Yes?" Wilhelmina said, trying to sound innocent.

  
"Have you seen your sister?"

  
"No, Grandmother," Wilhelmina answered, making a great show of washing her hands on one of the fluffy white towels by the sink. "Is everything all right?"

  
"It's fine, child." She sounded distracted, already moving her attention to the affair of her other missing granddaughter. "You should return to the ballroom and continue speaking to the people there. Set a good impression, remember. Stop being so standoffish." With that, she could hear the clicking sound of her grandmother setting off, likely to try and find Jaenelle.

  
Wilhelmina wrung the towel, hands trembling, and stepped out of the bathroom. She took one long, deep breath, and walked alone back to the ballroom. Back to the men, back to her family.

 

* * *

 

  
She didn't know what was happening at first. One of the men, one of the doctors from Briarwood, had taken her by the arm and was trying to gently lead her to a small adjoining room. He'd been telling her that he could tell she was experiencing nerves and had some medication for that, something that would dull the edge of anxiety that had been riding her all night.

  
Wilhelmina had gone at first, not wanting to cause a fuss. But the room- there was a small bed, and not much else. And the man had placed his hand at the juncture of her neck and shoulder and had pushed gently, shrugging her dress down.

  
All she felt was a sudden sharp stab of panic- and then-

  
and then

  
*Ride it! Ride it!*

  
Power like nothing she had ever felt before: strong, dark, _violent_.

  
It swept through the room like a tidal wave. Cursing, the man let go of her arm and fled, either to huddle in a corner somewhere or try to escape the flood of power, she didn't know. As for Wilhelmina- she knew that voice, even if she didn't initially understand it before the first surge of dark power had hit her.

  
She remembered their trips to the sea as young children: Jaenelle fearless, laughing brightly as she bobbed in the water past the point where waves crested, taking her by the hand to show her how to let the ocean's motion guide her body instead of fighting it, how to ride a wave in. So that's what Wilhelmina did.

  
When it was over, there was an almost supernatural silence for a few moments. So silent she felt she could hear her heart beat, pounding fast in her chest. Not from fear, from exhilaration.

  
Then she could hear sound begin to start up again: voices climbing as people went from gasping, to chattering, to broken sobs here and there. Wilhelmina clutched the Sapphire jewel that Jaenelle had given her before she left, feeling a sense of warmth and approval seem to emanate from the stone itself. "I did it," she whispered to the jewel, feeling uncertain, a little silly.

  
The soft touch of her sister's mind like a gentle caress, faint but there. And then gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never liked how the books dealt with Wilhemina, always shunting her away and bringing her out for short moments in which she was victimized or very briefly showed a quiet strength beneath her anxiety. As the oldest of three sisters I've always liked stories about that bond, and I hope to make her shine a little brighter with this only slight change in perspective and character decision.


	2. after the storm

Two weeks had flown by, since Jaenelle and Prince Sadi had fled Chaillot. It felt like two years. Wilhelmina sat at the kitchen table, her posture perfect, her hands clasped firmly in her lap.

  
Cook fussed over her a bit before giving her a plate of nutcakes and a glass of milk. It wasn't unfamiliar to be in this kitchen alone, dismissed to the children's table while the adults ate in the formal dining room. Nor was it unfamiliar to be here without Jaenelle, a pang in her chest and a lump in her throat whenever she thought about her sister suffering in Briarwood.

  
Now, though, it was different, because that sister was not coming back. Despite that, she felt...

  
How strange.

  
She felt relieved.

  
Not to have her sister gone forever, because that was a still-open wound that had yet to heal. No, she felt relieved because she knew that Jaenelle was safe, now. Wherever she was, wherever Prince Sadi had taken her, she would be safe and well. She'd be with people who, likely, could understand her better. Maybe she was with the unicorns that their grandmother insisted were not real, or with that girl Morghann, or with the strange people who lived in forests and even their buildings were trees.

  
Jaenelle was anywhere but that brick building that felt so wrong and ill, like all the sickness that had been in it had baked into the walls, with those men with eyes like hungry dogs. She would never, like Wilhelmina had sometimes feared in those lonely nights after overhearing Bobby say something about 'that intractable little bitch', share the fate of her mother. No witchblood would serve to memorialize her.

  
She's free, she thought, irrationally.

  
"What are you smiling about, Miss Wilhelmina?" Cook asked, startling her.

  
"Oh!" she exclaimed, fumbling with a piece of nutcake. "Oh, the weather, I suppose. It's- it looks like I'll be able to walk in the garden today."

  
"Without a chaperone? Your grandmother won't like that," Cook said, topping up her glass of milk. "S'pose she won't notice though, will she? Whole house is turned upside down now after the Prince and Miss Jaenelle up and vanished, after that..." she shuddered, clearly unable to put into words the aftermath of that sweeping storm of power.

  
Wilhelmina had faced that surge of Black power with Jaenelle's shouted advice, and to her it had been no more frightening than an ocean wave, or racing down the hill in a sled after Jaenelle had fixed it up with some of her more exciting Craft experiments. It was scary, but also exhilarating. When they'd run to her afterwards, fear in their eyes, probably sure she'd been killed, she'd merely smiled at them.

  
She'd noticed the concern in their eyes when they saw her new Sapphire jewel. No, not just concern. Fear. And in Bobby's...in her father's...a calculating, narrow-eyed stare.

  
The stare made her consider some of Jaenelle's parting words to her, and what the males might do to her now that she carried a Sapphire jewel, whether they knew it was hers or not. She still had not yet started her moon's blood, with the all the vulnerability that would bring for her. Her father made her flesh crawl, the way he touched her, the creeping sliminess of his psychic scent, but she tried to convince herself he wouldn't go as far as to break his own daughter.

  
(But then, Jaenelle had said it wasn't so, hadn't she? That her father was someone else. And Jaenelle was almost never wrong.)

  
"So many people killed," Cook continued, her eyes distantly watching some horrible memory. Maybe that of Graff's broken body, lying in her room, or of the other dead that had to be moved that night. "Everyone has heard the stories about him, but I would not have thought that he could have done such a thing. And poor Miss Jaenelle...so young."

  
Wilhelmina raised her eyes to Cook's, frowning. "She's okay," she said, quietly. It was important no one hear her. "The Prince would never have harmed her."

  
Cook sniffed, twisting a cloth in her hands. "They've said some things, you know. About Prince Sadi, about what he would do with a young girl like Miss Jaenelle if he caught hold of her." She shook her head, "Things not worth saying to a girl your age, of course. But I can't stand thinking of her, of her being- hurt."

  
She noticed the way Cook faltered over that last word, undoubtedly substituting it for another, less savory word. Proper young girls from nice families weren't supposed to think about rape, and servants caught speaking about such topics would be in for worse than a scathing lecture if her grandmother caught them so loosely mentioning it in front of Wilhemina. As though she could have been brought up in this home without knowing, at least on the edges of her mind, what the word meant.

  
But no, not from Prince Sadi. He adored Jaenelle. Anyone with eyes to see that would have realized.

  
And anyway. "I would know," she said, almost in an undertone. Wilhelmina stroked the Sapphire jewel that had been set in silver, hanging in a long chain around her neck. Through it, she could feel the faintest hint of her sister, or at least of her sister's power. "She's still alive, Cook. Alive, and- and happy, I think."

  
Cook gave her a long look, her gaze penetrating, but not hostile. "Did she tell you where she was going?" she asked, her tone quiet.

  
"No, of course she didn't," Wilhelmina said, startled. Her mind raced with anxiety, she'd forgotten that adults were not to be trusted, she'd incautiously let Jaenelle's secret slip, they'd find her now. They'd find her and it would all be her fault-

  
But Cook merely sighed and shook her head. "It's all right, sweetling," she said. "I won't say a word to the Queen. It's probably best that no one knows where Miss Jaenelle is, at least for a while."

  
"For a long while," Wilhelmina amended, thinking of what Prince Sadi had told her. There are dangerous people after her, he'd said, and they wanted her dead.

  
Why would anyone want her sister dead?

  
She thought of the males who ran Briarwood, their flat, greedy eyes and that strange sick feeling that clung to them like tobacco smoke. She thought of Bobby, her father, and the way his gaze lingered on the faint swell of her chest more often than it should.

  
"Wilhelmina?" Leland swept into the kitchen, adjusting her hair and the black taffeta mourning gown she wore. Immediately, the familiarity she and Cook had been comfortable with was shattered. The two of them drew back into the roles of the young lady of the house and the servant, Wilhelmina picking at her breakfast and Cook turning to fidget with something at the stove.

  
Leland ignored Cook entirely, of course, turning her attention to her stepdaughter. "Darling, I'm sure you've felt very neglected this past week."

  
Wilhelmina felt unable to look anywhere but her dish. "No. I understand that you're busy."

  
Shrugging off her shawl, Leland settled in to sit next to Wilhemina and put a hand on her shoulder. "It's so sweet that you understand that, Wilhelmina. Naturally, it's just been horrible dealing with all the- the fallout from what happened at that Winsol party." She let out a long sigh. "I've lost my daughter. But you lost your sister, and I'm worried about you."

  
"She's not lost," Wilhelmina mumbled, looking firmly at the table. It was starting to blur, her eyes stinging from the surge of resentful sorrow she felt rising up in her.

  
Not taking her meaning, Leland just nodded and looked distraught. "I know, darling. I just don't want to say that she's dead. There's just something so final about that word." With another sigh, she pulled a lace-edged handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed morosely at her eyes. "I keep hoping they'll find something of hers. A shoe, or a piece of her dress. Then it will seem more real."

Feeling stupid and mute and useless, Wilhelmina raised burning eyes to her stepmother and tried very hard to not tell her anything about Jaenelle. Not that she was still alive and with Prince Sadi, not that she'd left for further realms than she was likely in right now, and certainly not about her secret teacher and friends that Leland had never known. Had never, never believed. "I miss her," she said, finally. That was true, at least. She missed Jaenelle so much she could feel the ache in a physical way. She could cry and they would just think she was mourning her dead little sister. 

"We all do, sweet girl," Leland said, stroking her shoulder.

Wilhelmina felt her hands shaking as she tried to fight tears that she knew she was far too old to shed, thanking the Darkness that her grandmother hadn't decided to come visit her. Not that she would, of course, not in the kitchen. Alexandra was too far above that sort of thing to dream about setting foot in a kitchen. She let out a hoarse, choked sound and Leland closed her arms around her in a cool, perfume-scented embrace. 

_"You don't understand,"_ she wanted to say. _"You don't miss her like I will. You won't miss her like I will, or like Andrew or Cook will. I loved her I loved her, I loved her and now she's in trouble but I can't tell you because you-"_

She hitched out a sob and Leland handed her a fresh handkerchief. "Go to your room, Wilhelmina," she said, kindly enough. "When you're finished wash up and take your lessons. You'll have to study yourself for a while before we get a new tutor for you," she paled a little bit, clearly remembering the broken mess of her last tutor. Her voice brightened a bit, clearly trying for a bit of cheer. "But perhaps that will be good for you. Graff did say you were lacking in self discipline. This will give you a good opportunity to accumulate some."

The remembered whiplash of Graff's cruelty stung, and Wilhelmina couldn't help the flinch when she nodded. "Yes," was all she said. "Thank you." 

As she made her way to her room, hand gripping the cherrywood banister, she tried to ignore her last thought. Wicked, ungrateful thought.

_"I can't tell you because you might put her in danger too."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just noticed I spelled her name wrong through the whole dang first chapter. Yikes.


	3. why the witchblood blooms

Wilhelmina's schedule had once been a thing of strict and organized perfection: lessons in Craft, history, mathematics, language, deportment, and music. Each lesson set out and carefully allotted enough time that seemed sufficient for a young mind to take hold of new information and not become bored. Mealtimes: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a light afternoon tea. Her grandmother would look through the schedule for each week and approve or adjust the lessons in advance, occasionally requesting a sample of what she had learned.

  
Graff would simperingly offer proof of Wilhelmina's 'progress' in her Craft lessons, explaining that she was slow to learn but that was normal in young girls who had delicate constitutions. Alexandra seemed to expect nothing more of her, perhaps she even seemed relieved that her Craft was coming slowly.

  
Nowadays, though, with the adults busy and Graff dead, Wilhelmina was more or less left to herself. Certainly no one had expressed an interest in hiring another Craft tutor yet, so she was spending this unexpected surplus of free time tucking herself away in various areas throughout the house, hiding away with a small stash of snacks.

  
Today, she crunched into an apple, tucked away on a stone bench in a corner of the garden. Her cloak and winter clothes were amply supplied with warming spells that kept her toasty warm despite the chill in the air, and she had a good view of the empty garden beds. And the one that was never empty, for the witchblood bloomed red and beautiful even in the dead of winter.

  
Wilhelmina had taken with her a book; a thick, leather-bound thing from the family library. This one was about the life of a local witch who had founded a coven of Black Widows. She had apparently been something of a legend a long time ago, before the Hourglass had become unpopular, before Black Widows started being seen as dangerous and unstable. Jaenelle had know about that, had read the book herself and told her the story just a year ago, here in this garden.

  
She'd told her about it while they together tended the witchblood.

  
Shivering, she tried to summon up the memory of the time Jaenelle had told her what those flowers meant. They'd come into this alcove a few times before, Wilhelmina noting the strange, lovely flowers with their red and black petals that had grown from that old abandoned bed in the corner of their hiding place. Of course, she'd also thought they came to this untended area of the garden only because no one would seek them out there. She'd also noticed the sorrowful, dutiful care her sister took with the bed, but had thought nothing of it.

  
Jaenelle, with her eyes the dark blue of ocean waves, with her hands dirty from digging, looking solemnly down at the bed of flowers.

  
"What's wrong with them?" Wilhelmina had finally asked, not understanding her sister's grim expression. "They're beautiful, but you looked so sad when you touched them, or when you weed them. Are they dying?"

  
"There's nothing wrong with them." Jaenelle, ten years old then and slight as a willow reed, furrowed her brow. "If I tell you what they mean, you'll...it might make you upset."

  
She'd taken a moment to weigh that. Sometimes the things Jaenelle said did make people upset, mostly the adults. They'd get angry over those beautiful stories Jaenelle would tell about the unicorns of Sceval, and the centaur people with the lower bodies of horses. But sometimes she said things that were frightening, or unpleasant, and those things unsettled Wilhelmina as well.

  
"Are they poisonous?" she asked, tentatively.

  
Jaenelle smiled. "Yes," she said, "But that's not what will bother you."

  
That was something she had to think out for a little bit, so she did.

  
Wilhelmina was accused, often, of being slow-witted. Maybe that was true. She liked to puzzle things out before acting, liked to look at something from minute angles, turning ideas over in her head. Wilhelmina took a while to think, it was true, but Jaenelle understood this and accepted it. She simply waited while Wilhelmina took that time to make a decision.

  
"Okay," she'd said, finally. "I want you to tell me."

  
Biting her lip, Jaenelle had looked down at one of the flowers. "It's witchblood," she said, finally. "It's special, and it's...sad."

  
"Sad?" Wilhelmina asked. She wondered if this was going to lead into a story about plants being people and having feelings of their own, or a place Jaenelle had visited that was occupied by walking plants.

  
Jaenelle shook her head, clearly gathering her thoughts. "You musn't tell anyone," she started.

  
Wilhelmina just nodded. She was used to this secrecy, at this point. They'd learned it together, that any time her sister said something that upset the adults, it would mean her bags would be packed as they shipped her and her unpleasant or 'fanciful' notions off to that place. That awful, brick-built, sick-feeling Place.

  
"Witchblood only grows where a witch died," Jaenelle said, quietly. "Where she had a violent death, where she was murdered. Their blood nourishes the seeds. One for each."

  
"That's a horrible story," Wilhelmina said, her voice shaking slightly. "Why would you even say that? You shouldn't even tell stories like that!"

  
She had wanted, at first, for it to be only a story, like the tales they told of how the sunlilies turned their faces to the sun because of a love story between a girl and a dragon, or why the fireflowers had that milky-white, stinging sap. Just fiction, something they said about a flower to make it seem more interesting. Just a scary story they could forget.

  
But Jaenelle was not the type to tell those tales, and the hurt look in her sapphire eyes reminded Wilhelmina that her sister's words had been dismissed in such a way too often. She reached for her little sister's hand in a silent apology.

  
"No, you wouldn't make something like that up," Wilhelmina said, slowly. "I'm just...it scares me."

  
The garden bed was full of flowers. She felt like she might faint. The world pressed against her, dizzying and heavy, and she felt her heartbeat loud in her ears.

  
"Why is it growing here?" she had asked, hating the tremor in her voice.

  
Jaenelle's fingers curled around hers even as she looked away. "Uncle Bobby," she said. So much venom in that quiet tone. That strange something in her eyes that made the adults look at her with that undercurrent of fear.

She hadn't understood what her sister had meant, at first. Or maybe she had, and hadn't wanted to believe it. Wilhelmina couldn't piece together the brutal death of witches with her abrasive, unkind father. She couldn't allow herself to connect those dots. But she also didn't want to understand it, so she made no further attempt to question what the flowers were doing there specifically, hidden out of the way. If they truly were the mark of a violent murder, and her father was the reason they were there...no, she didn't understand it. Couldn't.

"If you ask them the right way, they tell you the names of the ones who are gone," Jaenelle said. This time her voice was laced with shadows, that low, frightening voice she sometimes had when talking about Briarwood. Then she looked at her, just looked, as if asking for permission.

Wilhelmina just shook her head, almost frantically, the lump in her throat burning.  She wasn't stupid, or even too innocent at twelve to understand what this could mean. Wilhelmina had heard the stories about her mother: good ones, from Philip, about how passionate she had been, how kind, how she had also loved music and gardening. And the other stories, from Bobby and Graff, darkly uttered. How her mother had been meddlesome, out of control, irrationally angry at males. How she deserved what she had got, being broken and then later having that accident that no one spoke about. How she'd fallen from her horse...in the gardens. 

That day had planted a different kind of seed in her, one that she wondered if Jaenelle had intentionally sown. Knowing about the witchblood was important either way, and from then on their alcove had seemed both more special in a frightening, bittersweet way. But her instincts about her father were altered. Oh, she was already wary of him because of his cruelty and his tendency to insultingly tease her wherever he could, to introduce her to men who seemed to look at her with the longing of a starving dog with a choice cut of meat. But now there was the memory of those flowers in her head whenever he muttered about an unstable witch, and every time he made a sickly-sweet statement about how it was too bad Jaenelle was so unsettled, so wrong in the head, perhaps she should be moved to a more permanent care.

And now, the way he looked at her and that Sapphire jewel. 

"It's good you're gone," she said softly, to the witchblood. "I miss you so much, but it's good. And I'm scared. Why weren't you ever scared?"

Someone was calling her. Wilhelmina sighed, hid the book in her cloak, and scurried off towards the voice.

* * *

 

"You shouldn't wander off," Alexandra said, barely looking up from the papers scattering her desk. "We don't yet know where Sadi has fled, and he already knows how to move around this home and our grounds. You're in danger of being carried away as well."

They were all so certain that Prince Sadi had carried her off and done her harm, and it made her feel a bit guilty. Wilhelmina didn't know how they would react to her if she admitted that she'd not only seen the Prince abducting Jaenelle, she'd given her blessing. There might be anger there, but they might just as likely say she was enchanted, or something of the like. That she'd been bound up in some spell he cast on her, helpless to escape. That's what they were saying about Jaenelle.

"Yes, Grandmother," Wilhelmina said, quietly. 

Alexandra looked up at her, hands folded neatly, her hair impeccable, and her black mourning clothes without a crease or wrinkle. She truly looked Queenly. But then, she always did. "You musn't feel safer because you made your Offering to the Darkness," she added, sounding irritable, "A Sapphire jeweled witch still doesn't outrank a Black jeweled Warlord Prince, and even if you did, you will always be vulnerable to breaking until you've had your virgin night. Perhaps you think, with your new depth of power, you can defend yourself more easily. That is simply not the case, especially with the level of Craft you have effectively learned. A witch who can not even master passing through solid objects has no hope of defending herself against a more experienced male."

 She couldn't help the flinch at the mention of her poor Craft studies. "I didn't think I could defend myself," she said. "I-I just wanted to look at the gardens. They remind me of her," she added. 

"Perhaps they should also remind you of what happened to her," her grandmother said sharply, then inhaled and sighed. "I'm saying this to you for your own good. Nothing but misfortune can happen to young witches who wander around without chaperones, or who form unseemly attachments with males. You must be protected and kept safe, and that means staying in the house under the care of the governess we appoint to you, or your stepmother, and if you choose to visit those gardens, wait until Prince Philip can escort you."

She tried to suppress a sigh at this further loss of privacy. "Yes, Grandmother," she said, keeping her voice level. 

"Good girl." Alexandra turned her attention back to the papers at her desk. Her lips pressed together in a thin, straight line before she added: "We will be receiving a visitor and her entourage this afternoon. Don't get underfoot. Stay in your room unless you are called." Her tone was back to being sharp, almost urgent.

This was an unusual level of strictness for a visitor. She was usually banished from the parlors or kept to the family wing until her grandmother's visitors were entertained or given the attention they needed, but to be restricted only to her bedroom seemed extreme. On top of that, Alexandra seemed less casual about this announcement than usual. Something in the way she'd spoken made her think that she was afraid of this person, whoever she was, that was coming to visit. No one in Chaillot could produce this level of wariness from her usually unshakable grandmother. Wilhelmina thought maybe it was for the best she was staying in her room.


End file.
